Welcome to my home in blogland. Here, I strive to make you laugh like never before, cry warmhearted tears, get silly, and be naughty. Together, we'll uncover sweet morsels in the light and dark. You'll leave craving chocolate. That's a given. I'm a bad influence. Oy vey, am I a bad influence! {But I do recommend fair trade and organic varieties.} Please enjoy the samples, and may you fast become addicted. You're most welcome to return.

My Story, Yours Too.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Good Chocolate, Bad Chocolate, Evil Hershey's, Part II

Don’t fret. There are plenty of choices, though these choices are not your usual, easy to grab candies found at North American convenience stores.

The most assuredly exploitation-free chocolate carries a Fair Trade Label. This international monitoring system guarantees a minimum price for farmers, prohibits forced and abusive labor, and promotes environmental sustainability. We do pay more for this chocolate, but the excess dollars go directly into the development of community resources, such as schools and hospitals.

Cadbury Canada is a front-runner in the fair trade movement. Fair trade cocoa originates from Belize, Bolivia, Cameroon, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Ghana, Nicaragua, and Peru. [To find out cocoa’s source, simply look at the back label. Fair Trade Certified products contain the label shown above.]
A second option is organic chocolate (e.g., Newman’s Organics). This is also a fairly safe choice, as organic farms have their own systems of independent monitoring that checks labor practices. Plus, cocoa beans are not grown organically in the Ivory Coast.

There’s a lot of guesstimating in this area. Here's my best effort, though, to delineate some of the “good” vs the “bad.” On the good team, I included companies that have moved toward enlightenment; they've begun socially conscious efforts.

Note also that there's plenty of slavery-free chocolate, too, that is neither Fair Trade Certified nor organic. When in doubt, avoid Hershey’s (or just don’t keep giving them your dollars), and enjoy!

Bad Chocolate = Hershey's and any chocolate from West Africa's Ivory Coast, Mars/M&M's, Dove, Dagoba (taken over by Hershey's, though they do have 1 fair trade chocolate bar), Scharffen Berger (also taken over by Hershey's).

Finally, and thank you for sticking with me through all of this, here are some folks fighting the good fight, and my sources of this information:

Holy Crap - when you say you know your chocolate, you KNOW your chocolate. I bet you can taste it and tell which field it came from in the world. I am truly impressed. Forget what I said about settling with Mr. PHD - you are a rare gem kitty kat.

Rose, yes. It's sad and slimey. I'm glad there are some good organizations and people fighting for what's right. xo

Kal, actually, I didn't know any of this until about a month ago. After I stopped crying, I started researching for this blog piece. Thanks, big hunk. FYI, the Big Hunk bar is GOOD chocolate - it's produced by a small (and non-Hershey's) company (Annabelle's maybe?). xo